THE PASSING GOD 

SONGS FOR LOVERS 



BY 

HARRY KEMP 







Class. ____ 



Book-i 



Copyrights. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE PASSING GOD 

SONGS FOR LOVERS 



OTHER BOOKS BY HARRT KEMP 

THE CRY OF YOUTH. Verses (Kennerly) 
JUDAS. A Play (Kennerly) 
JOHN MERLIN, Poet. Forthcoming Autobio- 
graphic Novel (Bon i & Liver ight) 



THE PASSING GOD 

SONGS FOR LOVERS 



BY 

HARRY KEMP 

AUTHOR OF "THE CRY OF YOUTH," " JUDAS," ETC. 

With Introduction by 

RICHARD LeGALLIENNE 




NEW YORK 

BRENTANO'S 

MCMXIX 



\ 






\ 

COPYRIGHTED, I 9 I Q, BY BRENTANO's 



•«.* 



THE-PLIMPTON-PRESS 
NOKWOOD-MASS-U'S-A 



>CI.A52584l 
JUN 13 1919 



-. ^ I 



I 



THIS BOOK I DEDICATE 
TO 

MARY PYNE 



I 



N bringing out these poems in book-form, 
acknowledgments are due to the following 
magazines: McClure's, The Cosmopolitan, 
House and Garden, The Century, The Pictorial 
Review, Munseys, The Smart Set, Ainslee's, 
Smith's, The Masses, The Parisienne, Snappy 
Stories, Breezy Stories, Live Stories, The New 
Review, and The Quill; and, in England, The 
Daily Citizen. 



LOVES DEMOCRACY 



1 HERE is only one thing 
That Slave and King 
Share, beside Breath 
And a Common Death — 
Love, that comes 
With banners and drums, — 
Love, that goes 
As the wind blows! 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Love's Democracy 9 

Cresseid 2 5 

Helen in Hades 55 

Cleopatra, Dead 5^ 

Zenobia 57 

Resurrection 5° 

The Emperor to His Love 59 

A Memory of a Former Life 6o 

The Song of Rensi, Pharaoh's Lute-player .... 6i 

Villon Sings 6 * 

Invocation "3 

Love in Hell 6 4 

There are Two Powers 6 5 

The Few 66 

The Wise Man Said 6 7 

At Last I Know — 68 

The Passing God 69 

The Way 7° 

The Red Rose Cried 7* 

The Passing Flower 7 2 

Eros Sings 73 

Innumerability 74 

C"3 



CONTENTS 

Old-fashioned Flower-song 75 

Mad-Men 76 

Purity 77 

Young Man's Song 78 

When Silent is the Singer 79 

A Cruel Thing 80 

Why Should I Listen? 81 

Greek Vintage Song 82 

Admonition 83 

The Reason 84 

To Think That Somewhere 85 

And Is It True? 86 

A Queen Died, Long Ago 87 

Hermitage 88 

To Myrrha 89 

To 90 

Little Things 91 

The Life of Love 92 

No Qualms 93 

You Love Me and I Am Afraid 94 

Nightmare 95 

Why Have You Come to Me ? 96 

The Moth's Complaint [97 

Old Song "98 

To Passion 99 

Consummation 100 

Possession 101 

C12H 



CONTENTS 

O, Tell Me Not 102 

A Dream of Inconstancy 103 

When That Which Could Not Be 104 

On Thoughts of Suicide 105 

Retaliation 106 

Variety 107 

Fantasia 108 

You 109 

Love Me no 

The Wind's Death in 

Love-faith 112 

Defeat 113 

Alienation 114 

I Thought That It Would Never Cease .... 115 

The Return 116 

Why Should We Strive? 117 

The Irony 118 

To Atthis y . . . . 119 

The Rainbow V . . . 120 

The Puzzle 121 

The Lesson 122 

I Promised In My Passion 123 

Folly 124 

Sun and Rain 125 

Heart-break 126 

Deluded 127 

Adjuration 128 

C13 3 



CONTENTS 

The Guestless Room 129 

In Love Again 130 

Dialogue 131 

Without Inconstancy 132 

I Held Love Usual 133 

The Protean Heart 134 

Love Pays 135 

The Wheel 136 

Ignorance 137 

What Else to Do? 138 

The Mistake 139 

The Ghost 140 

Haunted 141 

Adam, to Eve 142 

Your Absence 143 

Your Handkerchief 144 

The Tryst 145 

Dreams 146 

The Lover's Lie 147 

Strange 148 

The Leafless Bough 149 

Dissipation 150 

The Fountain 151 

When I Am Dead 152 

A Chant of Dead Lovers 153 

No Refuge 154 

The Mirrored Venus 155 



A COMMENDATORY ADDRESS TO 
THE GENTLE READER 

I cannot say whether or not Mr. Kemp has 
ever held up a train — though I should be very 
disappointed to learn authoratively that he has 
not. He has done so many arduous adventurous 
things of the kind — things that some of us dream 
of all our lives — that it must be merely an ac- 
cident if he has not been a train-robber as well. 
I have met many poets, but never, so far as I 
know, a train-robber; and I would gladly ex- 
change a baker's dozen of poets for one train- 
robber. A train-robber and a poet combined 
would, it seems to me, be something like a com- 
plete man. However, as I have said, Mr. Kemp, 
in his many manly activities, has come so near to 
my dream, that he quite sufficiently fills the bill. 

The adventure by which he first caught the 
shaggy ear of the public was one of the most 
satisfying ever recorded of a poet. Several years 
ago, as his readers will recall, he stowed away on 
a vessel sailing to England. When, a day or two 
out at sea, he was brought up before the captain, 
after true stowaway procedure, he gave the 

Ci5] 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

unique excuse for his misdemeanor that he was 
a poet, anxious to visit the shrines of English 
poets dead and gone, but too poor to pay the 
passage for such a pilgrimage. The very origi- 
nality of his plea seems to have won him un- 
accustomed consideration, and, as he was a 
stalwart man of his hands there was no difficulty 
in making him a useful member of the crew. 
For him to "work his passage" was mere 
child's-play, just an additional part of the fun. 
His pluck won sympathy for his plight, and, 
though, on landing, it was impossible to save 
him altogether from a week or two in an English 
jail (to him merely another amusing detail), the 
spirit of his adventure seems to have appealed to 
the English magistracy, and he was eventually 
allowed to go his way, and fulfil his boyhood's 
dream of visiting Westminster Abbey, Stratford- 
on-Avon, the -Boar's Head in East-Cheap, "The 
Cheshire Cheese," and other such places sacred 
to the memory of that robust breed of English 
singers of the tribe of which he is authentically 
sealed. 

Even had he been less real a poet than he is, 
that adventure must still have won our hearts. 
Placed, however, in connection with such strong 
and beautiful poetry as this volume contains, the 

C16H 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

incident has a complete fitness. It is harmoni- 
ously significant of one who is at once a man 
through and through, and a poet through and 
through — believe me, a far from usual com- 
bination. Mr. Kemp is now generally known, 
and referred to in the press, as "the tramp poet." 
It is a designation of which he may well be proud 
— whatever meaning may attach to it in the 
minds of those who have thus labelled him. I 
dwell a little upon this side of Mr. Kemp's career, 
because of the quite astonishing contrast — with 
which anyone who reads this volume cannot but 
immediately be surprised — between all that the 
term "tramp poet" connotes and the character 
and quality of the poems this volume contams. 

Tramp-poetry one might not unnaturally ex- 
pect to be the unkempt rhymings, probably in 
vers libre, of some half-educated pretender, with 
far more tramp in it than poetry. But, curiously 
enough, the exact reverse is the truth; for here 
is poetry, highly wrought and polished, and, while 
vital with original human experience, in the direct 
tradition of the noblest, classic, English song. 
You will seek in vain for the tramp; but there is 
not a page on which you will not find the poet. 

Yet, as I have already implied, Mr. Kemp has 
been as sincere in one character as in the other. 

l*7l 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

He has come as fairly by the honourable title of 
"tramp," as he has come fairly by the perhaps no 
less honourable title of "poet." A word or two 
about his life will be relevant here. Mr. Kemp 
was born on December 15, 1883, at Youngstown, 
Ohio, his forbears on his father's side being "Penn- 
sylvania Dutch," and his mother being an English- 
woman. He left school at twelve years of age, and 
worked for several years in the Arlington celluloid 
factory. At sixteen, he ran away to sea, shipping 
as cattleman, on board a German ship, bound for 
Australia. Soon after he turned up in China, 
during the Boxer rebellion. Coming back to this 
country, he took a turn at High School, but soon 
resumed his chosen profession, his next tramp 
being through the Genessee Valley, with a copy of 
Christina Rossetti in his pocket. Three months 
in a Texas gaol, held over on the subtle charge 
of burglary, was Mr. Kemp's next experience, but 
the Grand Jury failed to find a true bill against 
our poet; so he was set free to drop in for a while 
at Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Shop, in East Aurora. 
Thence he wandered to the Mount Hermon Pre- 
paratory School in Massachusetts, afterwards 
tramping to Lawrence, Kansas, where he stayed 
some time, taking courses at the State University. 
Finally, a trip on a cattle train brought him 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

East, where for the most part, he has since re- 
mained. 

This brief chronicle should also include farm 
work in various states, and a number of brief 
terms in gaol — for vagrancy. Mr. Kemp has 
also worked as porter, a sort of third cook, on the 
Great Lakes. 

Such was the fulness, variety, and originality 
of Mr. Kemp's training for that "high calling" 
of poet, which, as Milton has admonished us, no 
man should strive after, without having first 
made his life a true poem; a reference which not 
irrelevantly recalls another noble phrase of Mil- 
ton's, that in regard to "the race where that 
immortal garland is to be run for, not without 
dust and heat." Milton was referring to the 
Christian's race for a heavenly crown, but we 
may apply his phrase to the race for the immortal 
garland of the Muses; and affirm that no poet of 
our time has run for it through so stern and 
steadfast a course, certainly "not without dust 
and heat," as Mr. Kemp. 

During all these goings to and fro upon the 
earth, and manful grappling with the human lot 
in so many grim and dreary, if adventurous, ways, 
he found time to teach himself Greek, and to be- 
come an accomplished Latinist; reading every- 

Ci93 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

thing there was to be read, and especially plung- 
ing with passionate absorption into the study of 
the great English poets. These have been his 
constant masters and influences. But he has 
read all the lesser ones too. In fact, no poetry 
ever written anywhere seems to have escaped him. 
With him, as with Keats, poetry has been the one 
passion of his life. Poetry . . . and, of course, 
the beautiful faces of women, as this book sup- 
plies plentiful documentary evidence. That goes 
without saying; for the loving of women — per- 
haps many women — is, of course, a part of the 
process of poetry — that part which consists of the 
continual breaking and mending and breaking 
again of the poet's heart, in the ordeal of beauty. 
It is one of the most heart-breaking of old 
love-stories that Mr. Kemp chooses to tell again 
in his opening poem, Cresseid, and I think that I 
shall not be singular among his readers in having 
felt an instant thrill of gratitude to him for his 
having gone back to the great school of Chaucer 
for the manner of its telling. How good to see a 
modern poet writing "after the mediaeval Scotch 
of Robert Henryson. ,, It seems years since one 
heard the mention of that sturdy name. And with 
what strength and skill and dramatic force Mr. 
Kemp handles the fine old metre, preserving too 

on 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

all that curious sad sweetness that clings about 
the strong old "English undefined" — ex forte 
duke do. 

By itself, Cresseid is enough to give distinction 
to this volume, and at once to win for Mr. Kemp 
a high place among modern poets, as a poet who 
is an artist too; though, properly speaking, one 
should not make any such distinction, for, ex- 
cept in rare cases — such as Blake — a poet 
must be an artist to be a poet at all. 

But there is a great deal more in this volume 
than Cresseid, and the lyrics and "epigrams" 
which form its bulk, making a sort of lover's 
confessional, are no less artistically wrought than 
they are spontaneously inspired. It is an en- 
viably fortunate title Mr. Kemp gives to them, 
and significant of his philosophy as "love's pil- 
grim" — The Passing God: the god that touches 
our hearts, either to fleeting or enduring joy (it 
matters not which) and passes on his way. These 
poems are in many moods and many manners. 
The marmoreal influence of his Greek and Latin 
studies is apparent in them all, for they all com- 
bine a firm simplicity of contour with a thrill of 
apparently unsought beauty. Sometimes, too, 
they recall the seemingly flower-like carelessness 
of the Restoration lyrists. Through all, too, 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

there breathes the fragrance of romance, like that 
of the hidden arbutus in the spring woods. 

One day, Mr. Kemp and I were talking, among 
other matters, of the poetry of Mr. William Wat- 
son, and, after I had quoted some of the incom- 
parable stanzas of " Wordsworth's Grave," Mr. 
Kemp made what struck me as being a very 
illuminative comment: to the effect that in Mr. 
Watson's poetry, at its best, there was an in- 
teresting fusion of the methods of Pope and Keats 
— eighteenth-century precision, with something 
of the sensuous glamour "the wizard twilight," 
that characterised the romanticist revolt of the 
early nineteenth century. Mr. Kemp held that 
in that revolt, and its succeeding developments, 
we had gone too far in the other direction, and 
that there was a good deal worth saving in the 
eighteenth-century method. In this I quite agree 
with him, and his own poetry points his own 
moral. After all, it is vain to try and get away 
from Milton's "simple, sensuous, and passionate." 
Nor has there ever been any need to, nor will 
there ever be. Because poetry can be too clear, 
and too precise, is no reason for our going to the 
other extreme of esoteric incomprehensibility. 
Poetry may be perfectly clear and comprehensible, 
and yet glow with that light that never was on 

C22] 



COMMENDATORY ADDRESS 

sea or land. It is always so with the best poetry. 
Meaning and magic are not necessarily incom- 
patible; and I trust — though I have my fears 
— that it will not be held against Mr. Kemp that 
his songs always have a meaning, are always 
(horribile dictu!) "interesting," in spite of their 
being suggestive beyond their themes, with those 
undertones and overtones without which poetry 
cannot exist. Those who seek vague, mystical, 
symbolical, mathematical, or "colourful" verbiage 
must go elsewhere. It is to be had by the ton, 
for the asking. All Mr. Kemp can bring to the 
reader is beautiful, simple and passionate singing, 
the expression and interpretation of his own ad- 
ventures with love and beauty, the wonder, the 
heartache, the gaiety, the whimsical cynicism, 
the wayward philosophies, that in a rich "pic- 
aresque" nature belong to such experience. In 
a sub-title he calls his book "Songs for Lovers." 
Lovers will certainly love this book, for there is 
scarce a mood of loving, a joy, a fear, a bliss, a 
torture, or a whimsy, which does not here find 
expression, by one who is not merely a good poet, 
but an engagingly human being, with a wise, 
laughing eye on himself, but at the same time an 
indestructible faith in the folly of loving. 

Richard Le Gallienne 

C233 



CRESSEID 

A NARRATIVE POEM INSPIRED BY THE MEDIEVAL 
SCOTCH OF ROBERT HENRTSON 

Dedicated to my father-in-law, John Pyne, as a slight return for his 
encouragement and appreciation during the writing of this narrative 



PROEM 



A 



DOLEFUL season suits a doleful tale, 
And so it was when I began to write 
This tragedy. From the North showers of hail 
Drove downward in grey clouds of sidelong flight, 
Bouncing and roaring on my roof at night 
And smoking o'er the heather in dim day. . . . 
/ scarce could drive the bitter cold away. 

ii 

Yet, none the less, within my little room 

I stood when the pale sun had dropped from eye 

And Venus throbbed all golden in the gloom 

Girdled with light and immortality, — 

A dying rose still lingered in the sky. 

While she, like a young moon, in beauty shone. 

And for the moment held the dark alone. 

C25: 



CRESSEID 

in 

Her beams poured through the glass so clear and fair 

That I might see the wind had purified, 

Bleak from the North, the crystal-washing air, 

And packed the clouds away on every side; 

The white frost crisped and sparkled far and wide; 

The blasts in gusts came whistling sharp and chill 

And made me draw away against my will. 

IV 

For I held trust that she of love the queen, 

To whom I'd rendered true obedience, 

Would make my faded heart again sprout green, — 

And, thereupon, in humble reverence, 

I thought to pray her high magnificence — 

But the wide cold put frost to my desire, 

And I removed, and shook before my fire; 



I blew it up into a roaring flame 
And in its light I turned myself about, 
Brewed a hot draught, drew comfort from the same. 
So, having put the sharp-breathed cold to rout, 
I fetched my Master Chaucer's volume out 
And wore the night till dawn reading the tale 
Of Troilus' love for Cresseid, and their bale. 

C26] 



CRESSEID 

VI 

But naught I saw therein of how fate sent 

One touch of blackness into Cresseid's life, 

Till on another book my gaze I bent, 

In which I found how this fair, wanton wife, 

After the Greeks had left their ten years' strife, 

Was brought low like the dust that strews the street, 

That even slaves tread under with their feet. . . . 

VII 

Which I shall make in English as I may 

In language oaken-rough, but flowered at times. 

I would not pack the Summer in one day; 

Let others jingle on in jeweled rhymes 

Laid dazzling-thick, — the singer's chief of crimes: 

To make Apollo all his trappings wear 

In twenty suits at once — he's brighter bare! 



C273 



CRESSEID 



W 



HEN Diomed had cloyed his appetite 
On Cresseid's body, like the wind he blew 
Another course. He set his whole delight 
Upon another, and no longer knew 
Cresseid, though she was fair as flower with 

dew. . . . 
And desolate she wandered up and down, 
And joined, some say, the women of the town. 



II 

Thrust from the high-arched doorway of his house, 
Full oft she went in lack of daily bread 
Despite her body small and amorous — 
For all the townsmen stood in face-blanched 

dread 
Of him to whom she once unveiled her head. 
Oft then in dreams she turned to Troy again 
Where she was royal and had serving men. 

£28] 



CRESSEID 

in 
And in short space so waste her days became 
From lack of friends and comfort, that she went 
Out at the city gates, this lovely dame, 
Disguised, and to her father, Chalcas, sent 
Ahead. And so made speed incontinent 
When dusk had cloaked the world and day hung 

dim . . . 
She fell along the earth and wept by him .... 

IV 

Old Chalcas, captive, served at Venus' shrine 
And her son Cupid's, and the temple kept. 

Each eve he waked the lamps like stars in line 

To Cupid's altar every morning crept 

Cresseid, close-cloaked, and loosed her hair, and 

wept, 
Heart-shaken, ere up marble-vistaed stairs 
Came slow-processioned folk in solemn pairs. 



For she would not that any one might see 
Her fall from the high place she held of late. . . 
There, kneeling in close-curtained orat'ry, 
From day to day bewailing her sad fate, 
She prayed to Him who left her desolate, 

C29 3 



CRESSEID 

Cupid, whom she had served from that first hour 
That her sweet bud of life burst into flower. 



VI 

Now held of vilest worth on lips of men, 
To Troilus lost, by Diomed put by, 
Become a tale that old wives tell again 
With nodded head and close, lascivious eye, 
What was there left for Cresseid but to die? 
A darker end — that she should live and be 
A rose where death held secret revelry! 

VII 

A rose, which, leaf by leaf, must fall away 
While the worm trailed its blackness to the core; 
Gnawed into piecemeal, yellowed by decay, 
To gradual pollution given o'er 
Till sucked-out emptiness held nothing more, 
Till plague spread wing and buzzed and passed 

her by, 
And Death, strange-pitying, gave her leave to die! 

VIII 

Such was the fate of Cresseid. In the glass 
She glimpsed the grey pits hollowing her face: 

C30] 



CRESSEID 

First, hints of ruin like light clouds did pass, 
Then slowly each root pushed into its place 
Till the foul growth had clutched in its embrace 
All that men's roving eyes approve as good 
In the prized comeliness of womanhood. 



IX 

And Cresseid cursed the coming of the flowers 

And the soft, infinite falling of the rain. 

And Cresseid cursed the heavy-footed hours, 

Slow-crawling hosts o'er Time's unending plain. . 

She cursed all life, all pity, and all pain, 

All hope and joy — but over and above 

She cursed her death-in-life, the god of love! 



She sent her little, timid-footed Page 

With tangled golden hair and eyes of blue, 

Unto her father, laying on his age 

A deeper burden than the eye can view. . . . 

"Father, I ask but one small boon of you, — 

Give me a little brazen gong to beat 

With leper folk to get my bread and meat." 

C3i3 



CRESSEID 

XI 

Her father came, with that, and kneeling low, 

He sought to lift her, but away she thrust 

His ancient arms, then, bitter-tongued from woe, 

"Oh, that I serve a god who is unjust," 

He cried, " For now life holds but little lust. . . . 

Thou God of Love, full true they call thee blind, 

Only one sightless could be so unkind!" 

XII 

"Father," wept Cresseid, "Nothing may be 

done; 
Let me go forth in darkness and unknown, 
Cloaked from men's eyes and the too-curious 

sun. . . . 
Give me a beggar's hat, a beggar's gown. . . . 
I must go forth to live in lepers' town . . . 
For ail the joy of life has gone from me!" 
"Thou cruel god," he groaned, "who cannot see!" 

XIII 

Time must forever onward run, no turn 
May eddy backward in his flowing stream; 
Tears, falling for old sorrows, cease to burn, 
And life itself becomes a passing dream, 
So that what things are real and what seem 



CRESSEID 

Together in a tangled garden grow, — 

And ghosts, a-stray, in ghostly realms we go. 

XIV 

The Past, the Present, and the Future fold 
One Thing, and though we call it " life," who knows 
What in wise hands Eternity may hold, — 
What sweet, immortal balm for mortal woes! . . . 
But Time, at last, that ever onward flows, 
Will carry us to where we'll know full well — 
What none of us will e'er return to tell. . . . 

xv 

Having wept dry the sources of her tears, 
Cresseid arose and bowed her soul to fate, 
A broken thing that all the breaking years 
Could into nothing worse disintegrate. . . . 
She crept forth at a secret postern gate, 
Unknown, unseen, and loathing to be seen 
Who once had walked abroad as beauty's queen. 

XVI 

Where whispered sedge by barren waters thinned 
And sudden snakes slid rustling out of view, 
Near a wide marsh, dry-bitten by the wind, 
With tardy piety, as rich men do, 
In fear for huge, ill-gotten revenue, 

C333 



CRESSEID 

Or in repentance for his youth's carouse, 
A certain man had built the lazar house. 



XVII 

With ignorant trust to purchase Christ from 

God. . . . 
Bleak as the grey-washed sea this hospital! 
Abhorrence, skirting far, the sky's edge trod. 
As in the dark men press a friendly wall. . . . 
So there the lepers' wail, the sea-birds' call 
And winds and waves were all that silence heard 
Save when some sliding snake the sedges stirred. 

XVIII 

The clouted lepers found last refuge there 
As all the Dead at last must seek the grave. 
The huge catastrophe of one despair 
From which no mortal medicine can save 
A common lack of hope unto them gave 
From day to day respiring briefer breath 
In sad democracy of living death. 

XIX 

As from a tomb, each morn they issued out 
To squat in rags against the city gates, 

C343 



CRESSEID 

Exposing ulcered stump and ugly clout 

And begging scarce-flung coins, contemptuous 

cates, 
And bowing in return their scurfy pates 
To call God's eyes upon the giver's soul 
For meager alms dropped into wooden bowl. . . . 



xx 

Yet, if the Dead in graves were live, not dead, 

Or lay in living death bound side by side, 

Then even they would grow accustomed 

(As bride to feel the bridegroom at her side) 

Unto that sad existence coffin-wide, — 

Would learn as commonplace the caverned dark 

And live strange death with none but God to mark. 

XXI 

The lepers lived and bred like other men. . . . 
After the strangeness dwindled in their hearts. 
From very humanness, they turned again 
(If not to common trades and common arts 
And tilling fields and chaffering goods in marts) 
To pride they turned, and hate, and love, and 

lust, 
And all that shakes the heart till it be dust. . . . 

C35] 



CRESSEID 

XXII 

Her cheerless way along the alien sand 
Cresseid now stole — Terror and she alone — 
But no, — her Memory waved its cursed wand, 
And kings she saw that sat on throne on throne 
With queens close by (it made her spirit groan) 
And lords and ladies thriving merrily — 
And she was lonelier for such company. 

XXIII 

No noise was needed at the lazar door, 
Nor timid knock nor volley loud and bold, — 
The harsh bolt is no brother to the Poor 
And careful lock securing stolen gold. . . . 
But these poor folk had even less to hold, 
And so their house lay open like a street 
Where only winds crept up on timid feet. . . . 

XXIV 

Where none but winds and creeping lazars went. . 
Here Cresseid faltered at the outer post, 
And, after God's eternity seemed spent, 
She moved like one attended by a ghost 
(Perhaps but vanguard to a monstrous host) 
Not daring lift her eyes or turn her head — 
Into the hostel of the Living Dead. . . . 

C36] 



CRESSEID 

XXV 

Into the hostel of the Dead she passed 

As a sick animal creeps forth to die 

That Nature tells which hour must be its last. . . 

But first she raised her wrecked face to the sky 

And prayed that her few days might hasten by, 

That her shamed soul might go its silent way 

And not behold her body's slow decay 

XXVI 

And now she dared to let her fearful eyes 
Glimpse slowly round — as in a dungeon's dark 
The dazed culprit's gradual vision spies 
With gaze accustomed, every woeful mark 
Set in the stones by some imprisoned clerk 
Who traced sad verses ere his hand forebore 
And the sharp axe set wide his prison door. . . . 

XXVII 

Scattered like rocks that break a level sea 
The lepers gathered semblance in her gaze. 
Yon, — Christ have mercy, — quavering merrily, 
One sang falsetto of green-shadowed ways 
And made a ballad in his lady's praise. — 
Sad seemed his gladness, to seem doubly saJ 
When witless laughter spake a mind run mad. 



CRESSEID 

XXVIII 

Wild came that laughter as a voice in air 
That frights a wanderer in a haunted land, 
Floating about his ears, now here, now there, 
Till, with uplifted staff he makes his stand 
But only strikes the void on every hand, — 
Then hastens with his cloak about his ears 
More fearful since he knows not what he fears. 

XXIX 

Some played at dice, some chattered, some were 

still, 
While others wrapped new clouts about old 

sores, — 
For all held death to be the greater ill, 
And so they bided there on rush-strewn floors. 
The house of life possesses many doors : 
The grave holds only one, so strangely stout 
All must go in, but none may wander out. 

xxx 

All her glad days at last seemed strangely far, 
And time was fledged with paradise no more, 
And love, that lights the mind up like a star, 
To lay assaults against her heart forebore. 
She felt content with rushes on the floor . . . 

C38] 



CRESSEID 

Then in a trice she woke to life, and cried 
Aloud, for Horror squatted at her side. 

XXXI 

It was a man, It said It called her " Fair. 

"Cresseid," she heard the word endearing come, 
As if an echo got birth from the air: 
The gaping thing could not be else but dumb, . . . 
And now it put a hand that was all thumb 
Against her breasts, and cried again aloud — 
This naked body ready for its shroud. 

XXXII 

"Cresseid, I know you well, ,, the creature said, — 
"Right welcome are you to our burial ground, 
For still love stirs among the Living Dead." 
Cresseid for terror could not make a sound 
As with that wide-eyed nightmare she sat 

bound. ... 
Her voice rushed forth at last, "You loathly jest 
Upon mankind — the Dead at least know rest 

XXXIII 

You are so old you have forgot to die!" 
"Nay, I am young as you, if you but knew!" 
"Then life itself has given you the lie!" 
"Yea — the same lie that it has given you!" 

C393 



CRESSEID 

"Your eyes are sockets, and your flesh is blue. . . ." 
"Yet I was Phidion ... a year ago 
Cresseid had never thought to use me so. . . . 

XXXIV 

No longer sunrise widens into day, 

Nor from great windows can I watch the dawn, — 

Darkness has swept the happy stars away, 

And into blackness has the bright world gone — 

And yet I guess that beauty has withdrawn 

In ebb of loveliness from your drear face 

And body that once filled a king's embrace. . . . 

xxxv 

Since we are equals thus — why not in love? . . . 
You knew me comely once, as you were fair. 
Why tremble, sweetheart, like a captured dove! 
My foot was joyful once upon your stair; 
Your eager fingers once went through my hair!" 
"Away, foul toad — God, that I could not see! 
You fright to life all I thought dead in me." . . . 

XXXVI 

"Aye me, aye me!" she wailed, when Phidion 

went, 
"From its fresh grave arises my distress. 
To lazar ways my soul had grown content; 



CRESSEID 

But now a solitary hut I'd bless 

Set amid silence in a wilderness." 

An aged leper crone who crouched nearby 

Lifted her ancient voice and croaked reply. 

XXXVII 

"Give heed to one who would advise you well: 
It profits nothing, lady, thus to plain. 
Since in this hospital you still must dwell 
Till death prove kind, there is no hope to gain. . . 
So take your bowl and clapper, and be fain 
To use your shoulders to the galling yoke 
And go and beg your bread with leper folk." 

XXXVIII 

After that Troy had bowed her heights to flame 
That those cloud-envied tops forevermore 
Might build themselves into eternal fame, — 
Some few in scattered bands escaped that shore 
Whom blowing winds and flowing waters bore 
To other lands. . . . Troilus was one of these 
He shook the islands with wild piracies 

XXXIX 

And up the inlets rowed and struck the land, 
Taking their sleeping strongholds unaware, 

C4i3 



CRESSEID 

Becoming to the Greeks a blazing brand 
And to their chiefs a symbol of despair — 
Revenge for fallen Troy his only prayer 
Which at the altars of the gods he made — 
But aye he thought of Cresseid as he prayed. 



XL 

And now he paced with his bright-armoured tread 
That land to his long-dreamed revenge so dear, 
The kingdom of adulterous Diomed. . . . 
His heart rejoiced because his foe was near. . . . 
His great arm trembled as he took his spear 
Longing to drive it through the man he sought 
And slaying him a hundred times in thought. 



XLI 

They were too few embattled siege to keep 

Or under day to dare unequal fight, 

And so they gave the Watch eternal sleep 

And forced the palace gates at deepest night: 

And some they slew in half-arisen flight, 

And some, in sleep . . . 'mongst whom their 

headless Lord 
Sprawled, clutching in his hand his half-sheathed 

sword. 

C423 



CRESSEID 

XLII 

Then with closed visors toward their ship they 

fled, 
Troilus and all his men, ere day made known 
To twenty thousand swords their deed of dread — 
But night into the morn so swift had grown 
That unexpected dawn anon has shown 
His peering face with one star at his brow, — 
And all the little birds are singing now. 

XLIII 

The little birds are singing . . . fluting low 
In leafy underbrush, concealed from eye, 
Among the fruit trees ranged in ordered row, 
On trees whose tops seemed tangled with the 

sky; — 
And, from the meadow grass, sprung up on high, 
The lark in golden music disappears 
Lost to the eye, but charming mortal ears. 

XLIV 

The laughter of the sunlight in the leaves 
Grew brighter as a wind blew in from dawn, — 
And golden-flashing shone the warriors' greaves, 
And diamond-woven each habergeon. . . . 
They rode a-breast in flowing unison 

C433 



CRESSEID 

As light as swallows gliding on the wing — 
For they had stol'n the horses of the king 

XLV 

And surely they rejoiced to feel again 

Those steeds, beneath, responsive to the rein, — 

For, from their youth, they'd been good riding 

men, 
And oft their hearts had rushed through every 

vein 
With thunder-beating hoofs and flying mane. . . . 
Reluctant, they beheld the sea a-far 
Like the great body of a shattered star. 

XLVI 

And now they sped where the wide-elbowed road 
Lapsed 'round, and straight ahead the ocean 

swept; 
Brimming the sky the mighty waters flowed. . . . 
For league on league the foamy breakers crept 
To show how that their Father never slept, 
Deep in his heart, but ever dreamed of storm 
As in the Vast he couched his giant form. 

XLVII 

The lazar house bestirred itself that morn 
When the first shaft of day had put to flight 



CRESSEID 

The last dim star . . . and Cresseid rose forlorn 
Knowing she must go forth in beggar's plight. 
To see those lepers was a monstrous sight 
As o'er the sands they crept like hideous spawn 
And nameless live things left by tides withdrawn 



XLVIII 

The Trojans saw them moving, small and far, 

Like flights of birds that hang against the sky, — 

And Troilus cried, "I swear by Venus' Star 

And Father Ocean's million progeny, 

A moving host I see approaching nigh — 

But not a shield they bear to flash the sun 

Nor any piece of armour warriors don." 



XLIX 

"Lass, follow me, and do what things I bid," 
The aged leper crone to Cresseid spake. 
"Keep not your face in shameful mantle hid — 
Thus you may sooner people's pity wake. . . . 
And you must seem in every limb to quake. . . 
Behold, there winds around yon Western hill 
Folk who will put to test your learner's skill." 

C45] 



CRESSEID 

L 

The knights drew near. . . . their dancing scab- 
bards clanked 
Against their thighs ... a faltering land wind 

bore 
Their laughter and their voices. . . . triple-ranked 
They gained the waste that spread its level floor 
From distant hills to distant sea . . . and more 
Cresseid nor saw nor heard : they used the tongue 
Of Troy — her being with its music rung, 

LI 

And tears ran down her aged-seeming face. . . . 
Yet, lest she should be known, she bided mute, — 
Or made some sounds in Greek in that wide place, 
Which, though it be to all the world a lute, 
To her seemed better fitted for the brute 
Beside the perfect speech she knew in Troy 
Where every Hour was born a child of joy. 

LII 

She lifted up her bowl and cried, "Good sirs! . . . 
Have pity!" Then her voice no more could 

tell — 
A motion comes upon her which bestirs 
Her sleeping nature to its inmost cell — 

U63 



CRESSEID 

A shadowy dread athwart her sunlight fell 

As of an obscure ill she knew before 

Or lived, or dreamed, on some forgotten shore. 



LIII 

Life was so strange it might be all a dream. . . . 

She hardly knew if she were live or dead. 

What things had really been, and what did 

seem? . . . 
As Troilus passed he moved disquieted 
And unnamed sorrows through his being sped. . . . 
Why should this hag quicken dead worlds in him 
Making his hands shake and his eye grow dim? 



LIV 

Cresseid! . . . Ah God, and where was Cresseid 

now? 
He wore her ring upon his finger yet. 
Why should this creature with her roughened 

brow 
Bring to his memory one he should forget, 
The still-belov'd, who shamed his love, and set 
His fame on high to be perpetual scorn 
So that he loathed the day that he was born? 

C473 



CRESSEID 

LV 

Before he guessed it, his great hand had clasped 
His bag of spoil; he reined his horse in flight, 
Checking the foaming bridle golden-hasped, 
And showered, in a cataract of light, 
Jewel on jewel, pillaged that same night 
From the wide-plundered palace of the king — 
And, at the last, he cast thereto his ring: 

LVI 

He would forget that he had ever known 
Falseness so fair, and love so full of hate; 
Not even to the memory that had grown 
Within him, would he be compassionate: 
He would be stronger, if he must, than fate. . . . 
Where was his warrior heart, his warrior pride? 
Why should he longer keep a ghost to bride? 

LVII 

He laughed out like a sick man who grows glad 

Before he dies, mistaking death for life: 

His fellow raiders thought their chief gone mad : 

They gathered almost into open strife — 

One laid his hand along his ready knife 

At seeing riches garnered with such pain 

Dropped into beggar's lap like careless rain. 



CRESSEID 

LVIII 

But "Onward !" Troilus spake — and they 

obeyed, 
Though murmuring thunder half-aroused to 

storm. . . . 
His eyes like lightning through his morion played, 
And a god seemed to swell within his form. . . . 
His warriors feared, though suckled on alarm 
Before they left their mothers' breasts . . . they 

bent 
Seaward again, with his strong will content. 

LIX 

"Ah!" cried the lepers, gathering fast around, 

As flies about a flagon overturned, 

"Good hap, a pretty gentleman youVe found 

Whom in the olden days your beauty spurned 

Till like a windy torch desire burned 

Within him for your tender body's touch! . . . 

He loved you well, for he has given much! — 

LX 

More than we lepers ever got or will. . . . 
Now we'll be rich for many days of ease: 
We'll fill our casks with wine and eat our fill." 
Cresseid half-rose upon her gnarled knees. 

U93 



CRESSEID 

Her soul at last was sick with death's disease. 
"Go . . . run ... go ... see .. . if it be he!" 

she said, 
"Go ... I will give you all . . . when I am 

dead." 

LXI 

One who was whole but for a lion's face, 
Except he squeaked whereas a lion roared, 
Leaped, gossip-eager, from his squatting-place, 
And set off running, shrilling loud, "Great Lord, 
Grant us, we beg of you, one passing word. . . . 
Whoe'er you are, pray tell us — we would know 
His mighty name who loves poor lepers so!" 

LXII 

Then cried a lad who galloped in the rear, 

"Go back and tell them, Troilus is his name, 

One who has never seen the front of fear, 

One who will sit upon the head of fame 

Till the world tumbles headlong whence it came 

And chaos sprawl athwart the sky in peace, . . . 

Troilus, who lives to pluck the beard of Greece!" 

LXIII 

"Troilus, that mighty man!" the old wife cried — 
"His tale has been a proverb many a year. . . . 

£50] 



CRESSEID 

'The Story Of The Trojan and His Bride' 

Has gone abroad that every man may hear. . . . 

So it is false . . . and YOU have been his 

dear? . . . 
The ballad has it that he still keeps true. . . . 
I knew he'd do the same that all men do, 



LXIV 

For troth has never yet been kept by man!" 
But Cresseid heard no word the lepers spake. 
Once more through diamond-scattered dews she 

ran, 
A girl, while dawn shed flake on golden flake 
Of glory over waves that rose to take 
The morning to them . . . and, afar, she heard 
The God of Love himself, cry out One Word. 



LXV 

"Love, wait for me," she called, "I come to thee," 

And she grew into Woman as she ran: 

And still Love cried from blue immensity. . . . 

Seeking to gain a god, she got a man, 

Troilus . . . and then a-new the quest began: 

Love calling, calling ever from the void, 

Ever ahead, and never yet enjoyed ! 



CRESSEID 



LXVI 



Then Diomed caught her up and cast her by, 
And Phidion with lute and garland strove 
To prove himself the sought divinity. . . . 
And others mocked her in the name of Love, 
One after one, — a wine-flushed, singing drove! . . . 
A wand was waved . . . they turned to fleeing 

swine. . . . 
She closed her eyes: still called that Voice Divine! 



LXVII 

"Ah, Love, where art thou . . . bide for me, 

I pray!" 
Her feet went swift on clouds that flowed and 

flowed. . . . 
"Love, I have sought thee now for many a 

day; 
I have gone down full many a beckoning road; 
My eyes have scattered stars, my breasts have 

glowed, 
Thinking that thou wert close . . . but thou 

wert gone. . . . 
Make day for me with thy immortal dawn! . . . 



C523 



CRESSEID 

LXVIII 

Phidion!" she shrieked . . . she saw his loath- 
some face 
Changed from the comeliness it once had been. . . . 
And then another presence took its place, — 
A Presence that she felt, that stayed unseen. . . . 
The absence of all shadow dropped between. . . . 
She covered eyes, and, waiting, stayed her breath. 
She need not look — she knew that it was Death. 

LXIX 

Then, like the sound of many melodies 

From many lutes, each word soared forth, a star: 

"Rise, Sweetheart, rise! nor bruise those dimpled 

knees, 
Which should be only pressed against a flower, 
On the harsh earth forevermore! There are 
Dreams within dreams — and life of these is 

one!" 
And glory dawned about her like the sun. . . . 

LXX 

" Death — thou?" "Yea,!!" " Fore'er wilt thou 

be true 
And strong enough to hold me evermore ? " 
"Yea, — for as infinite as heaven's blue, 

C53 3 



CRESSEID 

And like a sea that never had a shore, 

I will embrace thee!" "I have suffered sore, 

Sweet Death . . . how beautiful and great 

thou art ! 
Be good to me ... for I am thine . . . sweet- 
heart!" 

LXXI 

The lepers wrangled long above the gems 
While the strange-speaking woman now lay cold — 
Pearls that were kingdoms set in diadems, 
And precious stones that shone in baser gold . . 
Then, when a just division had been told, 
They took up Cresseid and they laid her low, — 
Burying her where none may ever know. 



C54] 



HELEN IN HADES 



A 



LL that I sought was peace and happiness, 
But there was something fatal in my eyes 
And maddening in my mouth; Men grew unwise 
And crazed, beholding me, and Law was less 
Than their desire; one vagrant, windy tress, 
Or my unguarded bosom's rich surprise 
Filled each man's heart with visions and vain 

cries 
And his arms rose in dreams for my caress. 

Yea, I saw neither happiness nor peace 
But hungry faces bright as swords and spears; 
I was the White, Unwilling Storm of Greece; 
Tumult tossed round me, rising with the years . 
What was that pale boy's name the gossips set 
By mine ? ... we dead so easily forget ! 



tssl 



CLEOPATRA, DEAD 



D 



EATH, hast thou felt the thrill of her soft 

hand 
And let in love to thy forbidden land ? 
Ah, if thou hast, the Queen has conquered thee 
And tipped thy darts with immortality! 



CS6] 



ZENOBIA 



±_^jO, Caesar's legioned army, victor-led, 

A sight to glad and pride the Roman eye: 

Wrinkled and monster elephants sweep by 

Making the earth to quake beneath their tread; 

Caesar himself, with laurel on his head, 

Rides next, and all his banners flaunt the sky. 

But now the eager concourse gapes and hums, 
For She who makes the triumph-march complete, 
Zenobia, naked and imperial, comes, 
With gold chains chiming from her hands and 

feet — 
Her kingdoms overthrown, herself a prize, 
Yet no capitulation in her eyes. 



C57 3 



RESURRECTION 



i 



HOPE there is a resurrection day 
For bodies, as the grey-beard prophets say, 
When Helen's naked limbs again will gleam 
Regathered from the dust of death's long dream, 
And all the olden beauties, being fair, 
Will take the watching angels unaware 
And make God's heavenly meadows doubly sweet 
With rosy vagrancy of little feet. 



C58 3 



THE EMPEROR TO HIS LOVE 



i 



'VE a green garden with a grey wall 'round 
Where even the wind's footfall makes no sound; 
There let us go and from ambition flee, 
Accepting love's brief immortality. 
Let other rulers hugely labour still 
Beneath the burden of ambition's ill 
Like caryatids heaving up the strain 
Of mammoth chambers, till they stoop again. . . 
Your face has changed my days to splendid 

dreams 
And baubled trumpets, traffics, and triremes: 
One swift touch of your passion-parted lips 
Is worth five armies and ten seas of ships. 



C59 3 



A MEMORY OF A FORMER LIFE 



o 



N a raft of reeds 

Where Nineveh's walls looked down 
I lived with a fisher-girl 
Whose teeth were white as pearl 

Whose body was berry-brown. 

But how many children we had 
That's what I do not know — 
I've died so many times 
And written so many rhymes 
And that was so long ago! 



ceo] 



THE SONG OF RENSI, PHARAOH'S 
LUTE-PLAYER 



K 



ING PHRA had twenty dancing girls 
And I, his slave, had none: 
I used to watch their shining limbs 
That glimmered in the sun. 

King Phra had twenty dancing girls 

That glided to my lute, 
And every way they moved their limbs 

I made a sound to suit. 

King Phra had twenty dancing girls 
Whose feet were wandering stars 

Whose blossomed breasts were circled round 
With bright vermillion bars. 

King Phra had twenty dancing girls: 

His wisdom oft I sung . . . 
But I was wiser than the king 

Because I held my tongue. 

King Phra had twenty dancing girls — 

And he was old and grey, — 
And age and power are made a jest 

When youth sings down the way! 

C6i] 



VILLON SINGS 



W 



ANDERING along the king's highway, 
The ladies all to me were kind; 
'T is word enough to say that I 

Was neither halt, nor maim, nor blind. 

The little birds they sang for me, 

The budding hedgerow flowers were seen 

In red and white and purple mists, 

And there were herds in fields of green. 

The world was mine and life was mine, 
My heart sang like bird-filled tree, 

So myriad-full of love, the King, 

Who rode by, looked, and envied me. 



C623 



INVOCATION 



B 



RING me my slender reeds to blow upon, 
A lay I'll make, of perfect songs the king, 

Which white-armed girls with soft, warm 
throats will sing 
To ease their hearts with, when I'm dead and gone. 



C6 3 n 



LOVE IN HELL 



I 



N the storms which beat on the shores of hell 
Great devil-bats go flapping by, 
And boulderlike hailstones hiss through the air 
And tear the naked sky. 

'Round black promontories the loud winds flare, 
On which, like a stream of living leaves, 

Phantom lovers rustle and sigh 

Innumerably. 



C6 4 ] 



THERE ARE TWO POWERS 



T 



HERE are two powers that hold me with a 

vow, 
There are two spirits that compel my knee 
To bend before their sought divinity: 
One is to me the blossom on the bough 
Of an else barren life; one, even now, 
Is the last recompense of God to me, — 
And both are as two ships hailed far at sea 
By wreck-cast men with hands strained hard at 

brow. 



So, hour by holy hour, and day by day, 
And all night long I kneel before the shrine 
Of each divinity, and, kneeling, pray; 
And, though I die, — immortal, they are mine: 
Beauty, bewildering me with many flowers, 
And Love, that makes eternal, life's few hours! 



Wl 



THE FEW 



T, 



HERE are few who dare to climb 
The mountain-tops 
Where the great, blue sky begins 
And all space stops, 

Where the winds of Being blow 

And wings lift free 
Against audacious stars 

That kiss infinitely. 



166^ 



THE WISE MAN SAID 



1_-^0VE is a plague that brings no rest 
To maddened brain and fevered breast, — 
Rather than love I would be dead, 
Twere peace, at least," the Wise Man said, 

"Is love, then, the worst ill that Man 
Can suffer under fate's harsh plan?" 
I asked, "Ah, no, — a greater ill 
Exists, to which this evil still 
Seems happiness — 'Tis not to be 
In love!" the Wise Man answered me. 



Zfyl 



AT LAST I KNOW 

l\.T last I know a woman's mind ! 

There is no power, here or above, 
Can make her see — if she be blind, 

Or make her hate — if she but love. 



And if she will — why then she will, 
And if she will not, what can bind ? 

Much like a man I find her still. . . . 
At last I know a woman's mind! 



C68] 



THE PASSING GOD 



H 



E who has loved for one immortal hour 
Nor asked the god what lay beyond his power, 
Has won a thing past all computed gain — 
A mood that casts up pearls as thick as rain; 
He has soared forth beyond his fellow men 
And been some other bright star's citizen . . . 
For Love moves not with ledgers in his mind; 
The little god is naked, mad, and blind; 
He is no smiting whip, no breaking rod — 
He's a brief-granted, flower-glimpse of God! 



C6 9 3 



THE WAY 



T. 



O get Love, one must come on it unsought, 
The ripe fruit falls when mellow, not before: 
For it cannot be stolen, begged, or bought 
Without some taste of greenness at the core. 



C?o] 



THE RED ROSE CRIED 

V>/ COME to me, my Love," the red rose cried; 
"I fear your thorns," the nightingale replied. . . . 

"My thorns are only deadly for my foes 
To keep myself for you," replied the rose. 



C70 



THE PASSING FLOWER 



i 



N Baalbec there were lovers 
Who plucked the passing flower; 
In Sidon and Palmyra 

Each flushed, immortal hour 

Was gathered in the passing; 

In Greece and Rome they knew 
That from the living Present 

The whitest blossoms grew. 

The countless generations 
Like Autumn leaves go by: 

Love only is eternal, 

Love only does not die. . . . 

I hear the dying nations 
Go by on phantom feet — 

But still the rose is fragrant, 
And still a kiss is sweet! 



L721 



EROS SINGS 



T, 



HOUGH death still rages 
(Still, as of old), 
I have scattered his pages 
With dust of gold. 

Though the great, dark wing of him 

Shadow Man's bliss, 
I have drawn the sting of him 

With a kiss. 



l73l 



INNUMERABILITY 



o 



NE kiss! . . . one kiss is not enough 
Suppose the sea should say 
Unto the shore — "IVe sent one wave, — 
That's all you'll get to-day!" 



C74] 



OLD-FASHIONED FLOWER-SONG 

r OR dawn, a waiting hush of skies, 
For trees, a wind that blows, 

For clouds, the color-making sun, — 
And for my Love, a rose ! 

For him who dreams, a quiet nook 

Wherein a fire glows, 
For him who rides, an open way, — 

And for my Love, a rose ! 

A hand-clasp for a world chance-met, 
And hate for hate, for foes, 

An easy pipe and glass for friends, — 
And for my Love, a rose ! 



C75 3 



MAD-MEN 



D 



EAR, it is good that lovers should go mad, — 
The world swings else to so well-ordered law 
That God must find some way to strike with awe 
Its multitudes. The West, in sunsets clad, 
The East, in morning, — once a power these had 
Over the souls of men . . . but now they draw 
Their vestitures in vain . . . once men's eyes 

saw 
The naked moon, and beauty made them glad. 

But now how few there are whom starlight moves: 
So, mid the gold-struck peoples, it behooves 
Life's purpose well that mad-men here and there 
Should rise among them, testifying this: 
That solid things are bubbles hung in air 
When Love can capture heaven with a kiss. 



C76 3 



PURITY 



B 



E pure, sweetheart, but not like snow 
Which soon its whiteness must forego — 
Be fierce and pure as fire may be 
Which burns away impurity. 



l77l 



YOUNG MAN'S SONG 



o 



TIME has lightning in its wing, 
And pleasure is a fragile thing 
That b-reaks in clutching; beauty's face 
Carries a skull behind its grace: 
Then where's a better reason why 
I should love beauty ere it die, 
Lift brighter torches in the night 
And seize on joy in time's despite? 



C7S3 



WHEN SILENT IS THE SINGER 



W 



HEN silent is the singer 
And broken is the lute 
Say not the song was nothing 
And vain the far pursuit; 

When love's brief rose has faded 
Say never "it was naught!" — 

Say rather that each moment 
Was worth the joy it brought! 



C79] 



A CRUEL THING 



fOVE is a cruel thing 
And jesting is his trade: 
My sweetheart loves another man. 
And he, another maid. . . . 

And yet there is a way 

To thwart his wanton will — 

'Tis not to be in love at all: 
And that is crueller still. 



C80] 



WHY SHOULD I LISTEN? 



w 



HY should I listen to the Wise 
Though every word they say is true ? . . 
I grant that Love is king of lies, 
And that his greatest lie is — you! 

The old men lift their warning hands, 

They move their mouths and tell of shame 

Yet there's not one but understands 
If he were young he'd do the same. 

In vain the generations learn, 

In vain men mete each sober rule, — 

Ah, who would not grave counsels spurn 
When 'tis so sweet to be a fool! 



CSO 



GREEK VINTAGE SONG 



B 



'LUSHING maiden, laughing boy, 
Tread the ripened grapes of joy 
Till unto your naked thighs 
Spurted jets of purple rise — 
Was it not for this the grape 
Gathered its voluptuous shape? 



C82] 



ADMONITION 



o 



MOURN not if her face be a brief flower, 
O, mourn not if her beauty drop away, — 
Who would forego the rose's perfect hour 
Because she does not hold her pomp for aye? 

The gods pass with their fading altar-fires, 

They fear their dark descent in their bright 
prime . . . 
Unleash the white, swift hounds of soft desires 
And when life's hour strikes "LOVE" think 
not of time. 



cs 3 3 



Y. 



THE REASON 

AFTER A SAPPHIC FRAGMENT 



OU were to me so quaint and small 
I never thought of you at all 
Save as a child . . . but Life, that wakes 
The white, sweet blossoming of brakes, 
The windy flower on the wall, — 
Made you grow white and fair and tall. 

You were to me so quaint and small 
I never thought of you at all . . . 
In the full blossom of your day 
It is not strange you turned away 
Nor heard my heart's awakened call 
When you were white and fair and tall. 



C84] 



TO THINK THAT SOMEWHERE 



T. 



O think that somewhere now you wait for me, 
This very month, this week, this day, this hour, — 
That slowly you come into perfect flower, 
As perfect as a woman's growth may be, 
Dreaming, in uncompanioned ecstasy, 
How some day you will yield that richest dower, 
Yourself, to love's supreme and utmost power, — 
This, in its very joy, is agony! 

And yet — to fear that your white, alien feet 
Might go down some unknown, diverging way 
Straying a little further, day by day, 
From the appointed place where we should meet — 
This is too deep a hell ... it were not best 
To think that God could wreak so sad a jest! 



C8 5 3 



AND IS IT TRUE? 



A 



ND is it true you smoothed your hair 
And never thought of me, 
Or walked abroad when noon was white 
Nor knew what yet must be? . . . 

I look on every day as lost 

Before my knowledge grew 
That, on the common earth there walked 

The Vision that is you! 



C86] 



A QUEEN DIED LONG AGO 

J\ QUEEN died long ago 

As fair as you are fair, 
Of kindred white her brow, 

And gold, like yours, her hair. 

Her face is but a dream, 

Her little mouth is dust. . . . 

O, let us kiss and kiss 
Since death is so unjust. 



C87] 



HERMITAGE 



O 



FOR a country place I know 
Where elms stand in a windy row, 
Where larches frame the crimson sun 
And maples turn vermillion 
And branchy oaks stand wide and still 
Each like a green, inverted hill: 
There, when I'd dreamed a day or two, 
I 'd have a room made neat for you — 
For trees they are such lonely things 
With all their leaves and whisperings. 



C88] 



TO MYRRHA 



Y 



OU are my ceaseless litany 
That I will sing before all men, — 
And, dear, if you believe in God, 
I'll be your Christian then; 

And I will kneel by you, my Love, — 
Will pray, contrite and hushed, by you. 

If not, a pagan I will be 

And heaven will fail by two! 



C89 3 



TO 



I 



WAS the servant of a dream 
Until you brought to me 
The splendid vision of your face — 
Then dawned Reality; 

Not She whose empty shrines of Fact 
The world's blind fools adore, — 

Reality so high, so true 
That dreams avail no more. 



C9°3 



LITTLE THINGS 

lOPACE is but a little thing 
That God takes like a ball 

To toss up for a moment's flight 
And laugh to see it fall. 

Love is but a little thing, 
It is a tossed-up ball, — 

Yet it embraces life and hope, 
The world, and God, and ALL! 



C90 



THE LIFE OF LOVE 



T 



HE life of love is the life of a flower 
That lifts to the touch of the sun and the 
moon. 
The life of love is the joy of an hour, 

The strain of a flute or a viol's sweet tune: 

The flower dies at the dawn's red heart, 
And sorrow kisses fair joy to death; 

The viol-sound's drowned in the roar of the mart; 
The flute-voice dies with the player's breath. 



C923 



NO QUALMS 



i 



HAVE no qualms for any gift love bring, 
Whether he make me wail, or rage, or sing. 
I would not merely seek the Docile out . . . 
There is, I think, some merit in the shout 
That tears the ear, some music in the pain 
That roars on the soul's windows with its rain. 



C93] 



YOU LOVE ME AND I AM AFRAID 



Y 



OU love me, and I am afraid 
To take your mouth and rouse your soul 
Though it be lifted up to me 

As those who drink wine lift a bowl. 

You love me, and I am afraid: 

Though you protest it's nothing more 

Than friendship, — I have heard a-far 
The opening of an unseen door; 

You love me, and I am afraid 

Of love's disaster treading near — 

If you were not so beautiful, 

So young, and blind, — you too would fear! 



C94 3 



NIGHTMARE 



s 



HE bade him wait, while other men 
Who did not care, had all their will; 
He was as patient as a corpse 

Whose face shows white and still; 

His passion was a fatal thing; 

For, blinded, still he followed her, — 
Each whim of hers, a holy Cause, 

And he, its minister. 

Her little mouth, her small, white hands 
Were holier to him than shrines 

Where, in each dim and hallowed niche 
A sacred taper shines. . . . 

Her little mouth — she gave to all! 

Her little hands — as free as air! . . . 
To him as inaccessible 

As God is to a prayer!" . . . 

O, you are perfect, you are pure; 

I think that you are strong and true, — 
And yet, last night I dreamed these things 

And was afraid of you. 

C9SD 



WHY HAVE YOU COME TO ME? 



w 



HY have you come to me, you lovely 

thing, 
Making my heart leap and my pulses sing? 
Why have you come to me to bid me say 
"My life is now as nothing till to-day"? 
All that IVe ever dreamed or hoped or done 
Is like a night that yearns toward the sun; 
All that IVe ever thought or felt or known 
Is aimless thistledown o'er waters blown. 
Why did I never know, not ever see 
That, on this day of days, you waited me? 
By storms and tumults of your beauty torn, 
Now I shall wish that I was never born, 
Then, in the same breath, thank what gods there 

be 
That, at this great hour, you were given me! 



C96H 



THE MOTH'S COMPLAINT 



T 



HE butterfly is slain, they say, 
By the first breath of cold — 
But, O, for his one perfect day 
On wings of braided gold! 



C973 



OLD SONG 



w 



HEN the worm has banqueted 
Where will be your beauty then, 
All that lovely white and red 
Held so high in praise of men? 

That which you think lasting now 
Will no more with magic bind: 

Sweet-curved lips, and eyes, and brow 
Gone like music on the wind. 



C98] 



TO PASSION 



Y, 



OU beautiful, consuming thing, 
You are a power, you are a wing 

Uplifting me, — 
IVe never held you vile or base 
Because you stayed in no one place, 

But footed free! 



C993 



CONSUMMATION 



w 



AVES of unutterable ecstasy 
Shake through my yielded body, as a sea, 
Moonlight, sweeps in against an island bar, 
Its every atom trembling with a star, — 
Or as a singing, leaping shower of rain, 
Misted with iris like a peacock's train, 
Comes softly on the dry trees sick with heat 
And all the long, white stretches of the street. 



C 1003 



POSSESSION 



L-/OVE me or love me not, for I no longer care: 

You have been, ever will be, mine; 
There is no dream of mine but you must share; 

Love breaks all bounds; he is divine. 

Nay, when I had you, dear, I know I held you 
not, — 

But, having passed beyond my sight, 
Your spirit, merging with my inmost thought, 

Opened to me the Infinite. 

You are the sky, the clouds, you are the singing 
birds, 

The hills, the trees, the plain, 
My hopes, my aspirations passing words, — 

Our love was not in vain! 



CioO 



O, TELL ME NOT 



o 



TELL me not, dear, to forget: 
Let me remember still 
The hands that parted as they met, 
The sweet and froward will. 

Give me your memory in trust 
While we still move with men — 

When you are dust and I am dust, 
It will not matter then. 



C 102] 



A DREAM OF INCONSTANCY 



i 



HAD a dream you were unfaithful to me 
With some rare lover of a godlike mien, 
That there were stars and wonder, youth and 
moonlight 
As once with us had been; 

I woke from bitter visions in the darkness, 
From visions bitter, and yet sweet, to me: 

I watched your sleeping face, if I could find there 
Some hushed inconstancy! 



I 103 3 



WHEN THAT WHICH COULD NOT BE 



w 



HEN that which could not be has come 
to pass 
And you look frightened in the usual glass 
To find a different man or woman there, — 
Then, from your soul, you'll offer God a prayer 
(You, whose heart sang with music yesterday) 
To help you walk, alone, life's bitter way, 
In vain repentant for the slow, unkind 
Insistence that forced sight on love that's blind. 



C 104] 



ON THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE 



N. 



AY, I might still be prisoned 
Upon my ancient rack, 
Till, quenched unto its very roots, 
The fires of Hell went black! 



C 105:] 



RETALIATION 



fADY, I have loved overmuch 

I think, in ever loving you, 
Responded to the lightest touch 

Of all your whims, been far too true. 
Now it shall be your turn to rue 
The looks that burn, the wiles that slay — 
For love's a game that two can play. 

Since begging has not got my will, 
Since following your wayward feet 

Has only led me further still 

From consummations men hold meet, 
I will no longer now entreat, — 

I'll torture you the selfsame way — 

Since love's a game that two can play. 

Now YOU shall know whole nights awake, 
Great, barren dawns that surge and roll 

Like huge, recurrent waves that take 

A ship, nor leave one plank that's whole,- 
Just nigh the harbour's sheltered goal . . 

And / shall laugh and you shall pray — 

Since love's a game that two can play! 



Cio6 3 



VARIETY 



I 



F there were not some bitterness in love, 
If it were like white honey wholly sweet, 
If there fell not across its shining fields 

Some shadow of the sinking sun's retreat, — 

Its long continuance of light would pall, 

Its honey-heavy kiss ache through with sorrow, 

And so I love you better, dear, today, 

Because I know not what may be tomorrow. 



C1073 



FANTASIA 



W 



HEN hosts of alien suns 
Their shining lamps up-thrust 
And the solar system breaks 
Into drifts of silver dust 

In the gaze of other worlds 
To burst forth and expire 

And stain the sable night 

With trailing ghosts of fire, — 

Where will be this heart, then, 
This mad, impassioned brain 

That flared high like a windy dawn 
After a night's black rain ? . . . 

And will I then look upward, 
In strange, sweet flesh re-born 

While ten undreamed-of senses 
Put this poor Five to scorn, 

As that far world I lived in 
Comes leaping from the night 

And bursts, a tiny blossom, 
Into a moment's sight? 



Cio8] 



YOU 



I 



F I tapped blind among the Blind 
And you swept like a shadow by 
Nor glanced at me — 

That would put seeing in my eye. 

If I were turned to bones and dust, 
O, breaker of the hearts of men, 

And you drew nigh — 

I'd gather into life again! 



C io9 3 



LOVE ME 



.L/OVE me a day, a week, a month, a year, - 
If you but love me, that is all I care. 

I seek no irrecoverable oath 
Such as Immortals swear; 

For if you kiss me once, and then depart, 

Or hold me but a day, 
It will be more than duty chained for life 

By what the world might say. 

Love me a day, a week, a month, a year, — 
Then, ere we know it, time will cease to be, 

And we will laugh like children in the sun, 
Thieves of eternity! 



C1103 



THE WIND'S DEATH 



T, 



HE Wind died yesterday 
And it will blow no more 
The heaping little silver waves 
Against the shining shore. 

The Wind died yesterday: 

It will no longer run 
Along the purple-shadowed grass 

And chase the laughing sun. 

The Wind died yesterday 

That piled the sky with light 
And sent the silver-bodied clouds 

Like solemn swans in flight. 

The Wind died yesterday 

And stark the forests sleep, 
Their blowing summits surge no more 

With tumults golden-deep . . . 

O, Wind, arise again 

And brighten all the air: 
Strike silver motions through the trees, 

Wake colors everywhere: 

Purple and Green and Gold 

Wait your creative breath! . . . 

O, Wind of Love, strike through my soul — 
Without you, all is death! 

[in] 



LOVE-FAITH 



N, 



OW that you would leave me 
And another woo, 
Was it you that told me once 
Lovers should be true? 

Was it you that told me 

Lovers should be true? — 

Dear, I still believe in Love, 
But no more — in you! 



Hi"] 



DEFEAT 



-L^ET us shut out the dark a little while, 
Let us shut out a while the blaring day 

That has come down upon us . . . you, you smile 
A pitiless smile — there is no more to say. 

IVe fought and fought for you — and fought in 
vain, 
And all night long I've knocked at your heart's 
door 
Begging you take a moment's thought again, 
Asking for that which you could give no more. 

The other one — what has he that I lack? 

No! ... I begin again! ... I must be still: 
And yet, if I could win one least kiss back, 

I would forever serve your littlest will! 



E «3:i 



ALIENATION 



G, 



O, I will shut the windows 
And draw the blinds for gloom. 
Go, for the flower has fallen 

That filled two lives with bloom. 

For me wait other women, 

For you wait other men . . . 

But the ghosts of our old madness 
Will rise and walk again. 



Cii4 3 



I THOUGHT THAT IT WOULD 
NEVER CEASE 



i 



THOUGHT that it would never cease to be, 
The love I held for you, you held for me, — 
But, as the body's unperceived decay 
Slips grave-ward, so our young love passed away 
Till that which came, born bright with Summer 

hours, 
Went out, an infant hearse, all white with 

flowers . . . 
"Whose child is that?" I asked . . . and you 

replied 
"It is our child — our poor, weak Love that 

died!" 



C»5 3 



THE RETURN 



OHE whom I loved is coming back to me! 
Once more her cloudy head of hair will be 
Poured on my shoulder, and my life's long drouth 
Made satiate of the soft wine of her mouth. 

Full many are the bitter nights Tve lain 

Longing for her white, little hands in vain, 

Until I fell asleep, and dreams, more kind 

Than waking, brought her back to my glad mind, 

And I was happy with her till the grey 

And languid disillusionment of day. 

Yet, now that she is coming back to me, 

I dread the Dark of fresh calamity: 

Shall I not fear the mixing of a kiss 

With that same mouth that gave Another bliss? 

Will not another's face crowd in between 

My face and hers, — another's arms, unseen, 

Go round her, thwarting mine unpityingly. . . . 

When she whom I have loved comes back to me? 



C»6 3 



WHY SHOULD WE STRIVE 



w 



HY should we strive to raise again 
The ghost that time has laid, 
Going like people in the dark 
Of every sound afraid, 

With here an old, familiar kiss, 

Long buried in the night, 
And there a grey, revived caress 

Estranged from all delight? . . . 

I once knew one who waked a love 

No longer glad and gay 
And it was dreadful as a ghost 

That walked abroad in day. 



C 117:1 



THE IRONY 



T 



HOUGH you are everything that truth 

holds base, 
Because of your insuperable face 
Men have tossed life-long honor into air 
And youth has saddened to grey-voiced despair, 
And slunk forth, hollow-eyed, to pine and die, 
Proclaiming love to be life's vilest lie. 

You have accepted all that's high and good, 
Then turned it to the Dark's similitude, 
Making a doubtful jest, like sour, spilt wine, 
Of all that broken hearts once held divine. 

And yet, because I must be proud and brave, 
I shall go singing of you to my grave, 
Love-sick, with rhymed, immortal lies of you: 
And fools shall read, and shall believe them true! 



tiisn 



I 



TO ATTHIS 

AFTER A SAPPHIC FRAGMENT 



LOVED you, Atthis, long ago: 
If men .had told me time would be 
When we would love not, I had said 
Rather shall death not cleave to me. 
Aye, lies were true; mine eyes did see 
Eternal love (if days were so) . . . 
I loved you, Atthis, long ago. 

I loved you, Atthis, long ago ... 

In vast confusion of retreat 

My songs and dreams forsook me, then, 

And day and night the breaking, sweet 

Music of madness set my feet 

To measures paced in chains of woe . . 

I loved you, Atthis, long ago. 

I loved you, Atthis, long ago; 

Alas, that so strong love were vain . . . 

Those violet-woven days are gone 

Like last year's roses, last year's rain . , 

Gone, too, the sorrow and the pain 

That broke me like a Cretan bow . . . 

I loved you, Atthis, long ago! 



C»93 



THE RAINBOW 



W 



HEN I beheld the rainbow 
Flung brightly through the sky 
I saw in it a promise 
That love can never die. 

I told my hope to Flora, 

Then, one next summer's day 

I pointed up to heaven 

And said the same to May. 

Since then I've changed my fancy 

Of times an honest score : 
Yet nothing that could happen 

Could change my first-learned lore. 

I've kissed, I've laughed, I've suffered 
And none knows more than I 

The rainbow keeps his promise 
That love can never die. 



C 120 ] 



THE PUZZLE 

T 

JL HE woman that I have I do not want, 
The woman that I have not wears me gaunt. 
And so we foolish poets are undone 
Like crying children reaching for the sun. 



Cm] 



THE LESSON 



i 



WISH that love were but the joy- 
That careless poets say, 
That sips the honey from the heart, 
Then lightly wings away. 



I never knew a thing that gave 
Such pleasure kin to pain — 

If ever I get free of him 
I'll never love again. 



C 122] 



I PROMISED IN MY PASSION 



i 



PROMISED in my passion 
That I'd be true to May; 
I vowed the same to Alice, 
I think, but yesterday. . . . 

O, I've begun a ballad 

That all the world shall sing — 
"If love kept all his pledges 

He's be a beggared king." 



C123] 



FOLLY 



I 



LOVE the folly of women, 
I love the folly of men, 
That never heeded precept, 
But played the fool again. 

I love the folly of women 
That will not pause to think, 

And the light foot that covets 
The precipice's brink. 

O, when I'm lying silent 
Upon my still, black bier, 

Don't tell them of my learning, 
As you hold heaven dear, 

Don't say that I was perfect 
Nor lie of ordered days, 

When good wine was my glory 
And madness led my ways. 

If you dare lie about me 
May God requite you so. 

Just say that I was human — 
Then fold my hands, and go. 



C 124] 



SUN AND RAIN 



T 



HE rain that blows in grey gusts over the 
world, 
It never makes me sad. 
I know it wakens every bud up-curled 
Whose flower will make me glad. 

But when the sun clothes earth and air with gold 

Then chiefly am I sad, 
Dreaming of days the Past's great Dark doth hold 

And perished love I had. 



t^sl 



HEART-BREAK 



F 



IE! For shame — to curse all women 
Just because one broke your heart. 
Would you go and drop to nothing? 
Still there's life, and work, and art. 

Pluck up courage, give up grieving, 
Come and join the world of men. 

Somewhere, there's another waiting — 
She will break your heart again! 



Cl26] 



DELUDED 



H 



OW have I been deluded 
And broken in my pride 
By eyes that falsely looked the truth, 
By wanton lips that lied. 

How have I been deluded 

By kisses in the night, — 
How many a full-blown rose I've lost 

By blossom-plucked delight . . . 

By women, by women 

How have I been betrayed! . . . 
And how I fear God's lightnings yet 

For the lies I, too, have made! 



C 127] 



ADJURATION 



D, 



ON'T shut close in a coffin, 
In the old, grewsome fashion, 
This death-grey body that once thrilled 

With life's sweet gift of passion. 
Don't let them lay me shallow-deep 
Where all the ordered good folk sleep. 

But bury me in roses 

In some wrecked garden-close, 
The home of booming beetle 

And bedraggled, wind-swept rose. 



C128] 



THE GUESTLESS ROOM 



i 



T cannot be again, 
I have loved too much, too long; 
I have banished love, today, 
Forever, from my song. 

He shall no more have place 
Within my heart or brain: 

Let him arise and go 
To one who is more fain 

Of his cries and tears and lies, 
Of the Mocking in his face — 

I have swept my heart of him, 
No more his dwelling place . . . 

Nay, now he's gone, I fear 

That soon, through my life's door, 
He'll enter Scripture-wise, 

With twenty devils more. 



C 129] 



IN LOVE AGAIN 



O 



UT of my heart there lifts that flower 
Whose blossom is belief in men, 
Whose very stalk I thought was dead — 
'Faith, I must be in love again. 



I i3o3 



DIALOGUE 



T 



HE moon brings pallid gifts of sleep 
And dreams of wan desire — 
Nay, you malign her, she, who is 
Love's everlasting fire. 

I swear the moon's a silver world 

Whose only life is light — 
Nay, she is an eternal lamp 

For lovers' raptured sight. 

She whom I loved has left my arms, 

And life's a broken tune — 
I thought as much, and now I know 

Why you maligned the moon! 



C13O 



WITHOUT INCONSTANCY 

▼ V HERE do you sail, O friend of mine? — 

I sail where love is all. 
And do you think to find such place upon this 

whirling ball? 
— I know not. I but trust in Him, he takes the 

helm and steers. 
Love is a thing of days, my friend, but life's a 

thing of years. . . . 
On many a ship of dreams I've sailed to many an 

alien strand, 
And I've grown grey with pilgrimage, yet know 

I not that land 
Where love holds sway beyond the day — Nay, 

I would still be bold! 

And so my friend puts bravely forth with mast 

of beaten gold, 
With hull of hollow pearl and sail of silk-stuffs 

woven fine, 
Where the reef flashes colors mid a sea of troubled 

wine, 
Where storms their darkened brows impend, — 

for he must learn, as we, 
That Love indeed were less than love without 

inconstancy. 



I HELD LOVE USUAL 



i 



HELD love usual as the sun 
And lightly scanned his lore, — 
And yesterday he left my heart, 
Left, to return no more. 

Like all things life holds commonplace 

He seemed of little worth : 
The world cast out the God of Gods 
When He was on the earth. 



C 133 3 



THE PROTEAN HEART 



i 



LOATHE the beauty of the rose, 
I love not any flower that blows. 
Let the sun set, — I will not stay 
To watch the going of the day 
Like a great ship that pirates burn. . 
I love, and am not loved in turn. 

I would not miss the budding rose 
Nor any common flower that blows: 
The sun has set ? Then I will stay 
To view the vast re-birth of day; 
In me what dawns of beauty burn, — 
I love, and I am loved in turn. 



Ci34 3 



LOVE PAYS 

J-^OVE pays for all his singing fire, 
His gold and trinkets gay, 

With burnt-out ashes of desire 
And broken feet of clay. 

Love pays for all his singing fire 
With day on listless day — 

Yet only those without desire 
Are those who fear to play. 



n 1353 



THE WHEEL 



c 



OME out into the hilltops, 
Whom life has tossed and torn, 
The stars' supreme derision 
Will laugh your love to scorn; 

You'll feel the earth roll under 
As it goes down through space; 

The moon, a world that perished, 
Will shine against your face — 

Where men, like you, grown bitter 
From love's unending woe, 

Walked sadly in the starlight 
Ten million years ago. 



Ci36 3 



IGNORANCE 

JLAOW ignorant was I 

Of love's most simple lore, 
Who, when a day had passed, 
Thought light would be no more, 

For, when the sun went down, 
And night came on apace, 

A hundred thousand stars 
Revealed unending space. 



Ci37ll 



WHAT ELSE TO DO? 



R 



OMANCE knocks at the heart so many times, 
And, after one has written rhymes on rhymes, 

One wearies of it all, 
Knowing that after love's first, sweet surprise 
There wait the stratagems, deceits, and lies 

That soon turn sweet to gall. 

There is one worse thing only, still to hold 
One's hands out toward a fire that's black and 
cold, 

To dead love falsely true. . . . 
Then let them say their say, — what else remains, 
After one has drunk old love to the drains, 

But to seek out a new? 



C 138 3 



THE MISTAKE 



1—^EST love should give immortal life 
The gods sent woe, then hate, then strife, 
Suspicion, falsehood, jealousy — 
Poor lad, they blame them all on thee! 



C 139 3 



THE GHOST 



kJHE'D left a note . . . forever gone . . . 

The drear monotony of the rain 
Crowded, with its incessant blur, 

The drumming, dripping window pane . . 
Each echo was a thought of her. 

The house was full of little sounds. 

The red fire dwindled, spark by spark, 
As daylight, stricken gray at birth, 

Was gathered back into the Dark 
And ancient night reclaimed the earth. 

Still all the room was full of her 
So sweet and solemn and serene; 

There was her footstool . . . here, her chair 
A book with hasty mark between . . . 

A fugitive pin dropped from her hair. . . . 

Was that her hand against the door 
Or the wind grappling with the rain ? 

Was that her face that glimmered white 
A moment, at the rattling pane, 
And then drew back into the night? 



C 140II 



HAUNTED 



Y, 



OU'LL hear my footsteps in the rain, 
And when the wind shakes at the door 
You'll think that it's my eager hand; 
And when the fire grows bright at dusk 

You'll feel me sitting in the chair 
Just as I used to do, of old . . . 
And you'll not dare to turn your head 
For fear you'll see me sitting there. . . . 

And you will start up in the night 
Dreaming that you have heard my voice. 



Chi] 



ADAM, TO EVE 



i 



WAS a fool who did not know 
God's pathways were of pearl, - 
Why did you fill me with conceit 
Of stolen apples, girl ? 



C 142] 



YOUR ABSENCE 



i 



TOSS about in bed and cannot sleep; 
I feel as if my hands were gloved with fire; 
My heavy pulses roar along my veins . . . 
I cannot sleep because of my desire. 

The clock strikes on and on ... I stare awake; 

Your lovely name a thousand times I say: 
Then comes a grey ghost to the window pane. . . 

I think it is the thing that men call "day." 



C 143 3 



YOUR HANDKERCHIEF 



Y 



OU left your handkerchief behind. 
The perfume of your favorite flower 
Was on it, — as a sudden wind 
Carries the soft scents of a bower 

A league away — it brought to me 
The incense of your skin, your kind 

Young eyes that smiled so trustfully . 
You left your handkerchief behind. 



C H4 3 



THE TRYST 



A: 



ND have you found another lover? 
And shall I kiss those lips no more 
That were as sweet as dripping honey 
From the hive's golden core ? 

And shall I wait for you no longer 

Beneath the white, cloud-drifting moon 

And feel an hour too late, without you, — 
Arrived an hour too soon ? 

Not yet! Not yet! . . . we are discovered! . . 

I swear by all the night above 
I'll never love another woman 

If you have failed me, love! 

You come! . . . Life's miracle has happened 
Again! . . . O, girl so white and pure 

Why is it love is most uncertain 
When it is most secure ? 



C 145 3 



DREAMS 



OOME say that dreams they come of God, 

I know that this is true, 
Because the good God sends a dream 

Each night, of you. 

I meet you in a far, green place 

Whenas I fall asleep, — 
We linger all night in a bower 

Where leaves are deep, 

And, till the blushing of the dawn, 

I am complete in you. . . . 
Some say that dreams they come of God: 

I know that it is true. 



C146] 



THE LOVER'S LIE 

A'M sick of your white folly 
And all your wanton ways; 

You've rilled my nights with madness, 
My life, with empty days; 

I'm leaving you forever, 

I'm — what, you didnt hear? . . . 
Yes, I was only saying 
How much I love you, dear! 



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STRANGE 



T 



IS strange that we whose tumults roll 
Hot like lava from soul to soul, 
Must some day into silence go 
And lie as calm as moonlit snow, 
With no more beating of the heart, 
In a narrow grave, . . . apart! 



Ci48 3 



THE LEAFLESS BOUGH 

OlNCE you have gone away from me 

My very life has grown 
Bare as a leafless bough from which 

A singing bird has flown, — 

A leafless bough in a windy sky 

Without one hint of green : 
But through the barren twigs of it 

The clouds themselves are seen. 



C 149] 



DISSIPATION 



i 



CLIMBED and climbed the windy stair. 
A yellow light slanted in the gloom. 
The curtains, dark about the room, 
Shivered alive in the rushing air. 
A tall, white woman waited me there. 
Our four lips burst forth into bloom 
Of flowering kisses . . . when I came down 
Feeling feeble of step and grey, 
A flight of birds hovered in air 
And my eyes ached against the day, 
For it was daylight everywhere. 



CiSo] 



I 



THE FOUNTAIN 



N a green garden of delight 
A hidden fountain played all night, 
A grey and moving ghost of sound 
That floated over phantom ground, 
Now near, now far, as the wind blew. 
The fountain was my love for you; 
The wind, your moods as light as air; 
The black night was my love's despair. 



CI5I3 



WHEN I AM DEAD 



T, 



HE wind will blow above when I am dead, 
The sun take dusk, and the great dawn flare red; 
The trees will sway above when I am dead, 
And Time's mad chariot whirl, forever sped; 

While I drop back to that from which I came 
Men will be seared with the brief whip and flame 
Of pitiless life — but, let two lovers pass 
And I'll forget, and sing beneath the grass. 



Ci523 



A CHANT OF DEAD LOVERS 

1 ^1 OW silence and mysterious death are ours 
And over us perennial growths of flowers 
Come and depart, hear what we lovers say 
Who are dead and perished, having loved our day 
Death has not made the memory of one kiss 
Diminish its least heritage of bliss; 
Decay, with all its strength, has not withdrawn 
The memory of our first love's shy, sweet dawn, 
The soft reluctant hand that still would stay, 
The poignant, perfect loves of yesterday. 
As for the Bitter Ones who lie here stark, 
Loveless in life, now wrapped in loveless Dark, — 
We pity them who were dead, alive — and, dead, 
Are by no least love's memory comforted. 



C1533 



NO REFUGE 



O 



FOR a refuge 
In some remote quiet, 
Love is a madness, 
Dear I a-by it . . . 

But, in remote quiet, 

I'd hear my blood beating 
In pitiful riot 

Like armies retreating. 



C154H 



THE MIRRORED VENUS 



V 



ENUS lived of old in Cyprus 
With soft roses in her hair, — 
All her house was full of mirrors 
Everywhere, 

Mirrors with a thousand motions 
When she went her rosy ways. . 

Full of motions all her dawns and 
Shadowy days. 

Venus lived in every mirror 

Every way she turned her head: 

Duplicate innumerably 
Her bright tread, 

Duplicate innumerably 

Hands and arms and hair, — 

Venus saw her beauty only 
Everywhere. . . . 

O, the vain and barren beauty, — 
Every worshipper that came 

Multiplied into a thousand, 
Each the same; 

And the little moon that lingered 
On its back across a cloud 

Duplicated silver crescents 
In a crowd. . . . 



CiSSl 



THE MIRRORED VENUS 

Broken are the many mirrors, 
Gone forever are the days, 

Dark the altar that was many 
With one blaze, 

Gone the bright, reflected laughter 
That was Music's self a stir, — 

Yet are memories immortal 
Left of Her, 

And in every woman walking 
Loveward, does each lover meet 

Droop of low, immortal eyelids, 
Flow of feet 

Echoing on eternal errands 

Drawn by love's compulsive will 

And The Venus Of the Mirrors 
Thralls him still! 



Ci563 



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